


Down to Earth

by JaneTurenne



Category: Ashes to Ashes
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-28
Updated: 2012-05-28
Packaged: 2017-11-06 03:42:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneTurenne/pseuds/JaneTurenne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heaven, it turns out, isn't all it's cracked up to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down to Earth

**Author's Note:**

> Beta thanks to tardiscrash.

Heaven, it turns out, isn't all it's cracked up to be. 

Oh, Nelson is well enough, she supposes. As deities she's never believed in go, he's preferable to any other deity she's never believed in, anyway. Only, the thing about deities is, they're infallible. They're endlessly, endlessly infallible, and you can't _fight_ with infallible. You can't even have a good debate or a solid exchange of ideas with infallible. It just sits there, being endlessly merciful and endlessly _right_ , and you end up wanting to bash its head in solely because you have so little reason to want to bash its head in.

There's Ray and Chris and Shaz, of course. And others. Sam and Annie are just as lovely as she always wanted them to be. If there were such a thing as linear time here, which Alex isn't _entirely_ certain there is, she thinks there must be years spent in stories of exploits from the Manchester days, in Alex and Shaz getting to know Annie and Sam, in commiseration and camaraderie. But when it comes to eternity, even years worth of stories wear thin quicker than a blink, and anyway, ninety-eight of every hundred conversations end up in the Guv.

There is no pain in this world, but that doesn't stop Gene Hunt's name from aching in her chest.

This place isn't rational, of course, not by any rationality Alex understands. It's not just time. They each of them shape the collective world around them, and yet each of them occupies a space uniquely, entirely and utterly their own. It's the same bar, but it's Sam's bar, and Ray's bar, and Shaz's, and different for each of them, and the same. It remakes itself in their individual images.

The neon-red flashing EMERGENCY EXIT in Alex's version of the bar--that can't be a coincidence, then.

She thinks she's the only one who can see it. Well, Nelson can, she supposes, but he's all-powerful, and anyway, he never mentions it. But she thinks she's the only dead copper who notices, until one day--if there are days here, Alex still hasn't really decided--there's a hand on her shoulder.

"I've thought about it myself," says a voice, "but Annie would probably haunt me."

She turns back to face him. "Go," says Sam Tyler. "He needs you."

And he does. And she does, too.

She goes.

It's a long climb. Time starts working right, she thinks, somewhere halfway down the ladder. The spike heels materialize somewhat further on. She doesn't know when the miniskirt comes into the picture, but she knows she wasn't wearing it when she left.

Trust Gene, she thinks, never to give up a chance for staring at her knickers.

He's there at the bottom, waiting in the alley behind CID, when finally she reaches it. Her hands would be cut raw from leagues of rungs, but for the leather gloves that appeared on her hands, somewhere quite early on in her climb. And that's the man who shapes this world--always taking care of her, at least in the moments when it really counts.

He smells of leather and whiskey and wool, and is smoking an inordinate cigar. He puffs on it thoughtfully for a moment, and doesn't offer her a hand down as she alights dozily on the spinning earth, head reeling from the descent.

"Thought I was rid of you, Bolly," he says. "Ought to have known you'd crop up again sooner or later."

"Don't sound so pleased," she says, stumbling. "After how much it took me to get here, you could at least say hello." He catches her before she can fall, rights her, dusts her off. She's wearing fur, of course; he's always liked seeing her in fur. She doesn't need her impeccable education to grasp the psychological significance of _that_.

"I seem to remember leaving you elsewhere, Drake. Somewhere better."

"This world is for coppers with unfinished business," she says, not smiling with her lips, watching him not smile with his, trying to remember the word for missing something that's still within reach. "And I left one or two things undone."

"Leave the gas on?"

"Not quite," she says, unable to help the smile this time. "There's a story I need to tell you. My favorite, when I was a girl."

"Of course you do," he says. "I'll just pull on my frilly pink petticoats and we'll gather round for a nice little storytime, shall I?"

"Pink would suit you."

"Believe it or not, Bolls, the absence of your bony little arse hasn't been enough to drive me to poofery as yet."

"The _story_ ," she ploughs ahead, "is about a beautiful young woman who becomes the captive of a terrible monster."

"I think I know who that's supposed to be. Wonderful for my pride, having you around."

"Over the course of her captivity, she learns to understand that there's more to him than his gruff exterior. He's...kind to her. Takes care of her. She wants to stay with him. But her family needs her, and so she asks him to release her. And though he knows he'll die of a broken heart without her, he lets her go."

"If you think I've been..."

"She tries to stay away. Her loved ones try to keep her with them. But the thought of her poor beast all alone eats her up inside, and finally, she returns to his castle, only to find him moments away from death."

"I can't die, Bolly, and if you're looking to net yourself a prince out of this little fairy tale..."

"I'll settle for a white knight," she says, and plucks the cigar from his fingers, and grinds it out under her heel.

"I don't want you here."

"Yes, you do."

"Shockingly enough, the world hasn't stopped spinning without you. I've got the makings of a new department..."

"...and you'll be needing my help."

"I know this will sound strange to you, Bolls, but I was doing just fine mopping the scum off these streets long before you poked your nose into..."

"You don't happen to have a pomegranate on you, have you?" she asks.

"A _what_?"

"A pomegranate. Different story, same ending. Six seeds to become queen of the afterlife. Would be fitting, don't you think?"

"Oh, a _queen_ now, is it?"

"Or a lioness?" she asks. "You just said that I'm good for your pride, oh Lion of Manchester. Nothing functions quite right around here without an alpha female. And it's lonely, I'd imagine."

"Do I look lonely?"

"Not anymore."

"Bolly..."

" _I've_ been lonely," she admits, holding his eyes. "I've missed you, Gene."

He hesitates for a long moment. "I wanted better than this for you, Alex," he says, gently, the voice he uses when he's at his best. "Better than...any of this."

"Tough," she announces. "It wasn't your choice to make. This is what _I_ want." It occurs to her abruptly, the way these things do, and she says, "Saudade."

"None of your bloody Latin."

"It's Portuguese," she says. "And it means 'a longing so deep that it never goes away.' It's sadness and happiness all at once. It's the way it hurts when you need somebody, and you know you're never going to see them again. And do you know something, Gene Hunt?"

She's stepped closer to him, somewhere during that little speech. She's been moving closer to him all the time. But he takes the last step. "Yeah," he says, his breath on her nose. "Me too."

She likes that his hair is just long enough to properly bury her fingers in. She likes that she can taste _him_ , beneath the lingering flavor of his cigar. She likes that she hasn't forgotten what he tastes like.

"Unfinished business, you said," he says, leaning his forehead on hers.

"Mmm-hmm," she murmurs, and kisses him again. "A great deal of it, I'd say."

"Pomegranates," he says, thoughtfully. "Well. I suppose that's getting off easy, with the likes of you. Cheaper than diamonds."

"Come on," she says, giving him one more quick, hard kiss, and then tugging him by both his hands. "I'm self-appointed mother of this entire world, and it's a very long while past your bedtime."

He stops. "What _exactly_ do you think I'm into, Bolly?"

"All right, bad analogy. Ignore that part. Are you coming back to my place, or aren't you?"

He gives her a suspicious glance. "Last time..."

"Last time, I hadn't just climbed down from the Great Pub in the Sky to see you again. This isn't last time." She considers. "You _have_ got rid of Keats?"

"I don't think his lot were too pleased that he missed out on you and the rest. He's been called back to the home office."

"No more than he deserves," she says, grimly. "Good. No interruptions this time."

"Right," he says, with sudden decision, wrapping a possessive arm around her waist and dragging her double-time in the direction of her flat. She knows instinctively that it's still there, though she wonders what year it is now, here, and whether, in her absence, it's redecorated itself to fit the times. "But I warn you, I'm not letting you out of my sight until the deed is done. Probably not until it's done several times, as a matter of fact."

Keeping up with Gene on these heels should be a near-impossible feat. But she's never had the slightest trouble keeping up with Gene. "Suits me perfectly."

"Good, then."

"Good."

"Good." He looks sideways at her, and she smiles back. "And Bolly?"

"Guv?"

"Welcome home."


End file.
